Production and Price Control in WWII America

By 1941, the United States was pledged to entering the Second World War. Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor in an unprovoked display of aggression intended to cripple the United States navy preemptively and the fascist Third Reich is knocking at the door of Great Britain and turning its sights on the U.S.S.R.

In the U.S. citizens still reeling from the Great Depression found the war, ironically, to be an agent through which the economy and industrial sector could  bounce back, get back on its feet and charge into the future. Automobile manufacturers began building tanks, aircraft and other military vehicles while other public sector factories created ammunition, rations and other military gear such as fatigues and rifles.

So, to allocate materials and regulate production of these products, as well as items such as fuel, Franklin D. Roosevelt commissioned, through executive order, the War Production Board in January 1942.

In a speech dated January 6, 1942 President Roosevelt spoke to the American people, telling them of what must be done to attain the final ends of victory in the recently pledged war. He said: "The superiority of the United States in munitions and ships must be . . . so overwhelming that the Axis nations can never hope to catch up with it . . . to attain this overwhelming superiority, the United States must build planes and tanks and guns and ships to the utmost of our national capacity. We have the ability and capacity to produce arms not only for our own armed forces, but also for the armies, navies and air forces fighting on our side. . . This production of ours . . . must be raised far above its present levels, even though it will mean the dislocation of the lives and occupations of millions of our own people. We must raise our sights all along the production line. Let no man say it cannot be done."

And the War Production Board did just that - it raised production, lowered and, eventually, prohibited nonessential productions and created a priority scheme that dictated the distribution of services and materials. Metals, rubber, plastic, gasoline, oils, and so on and so forth were rationed by the board.

The board was disbanded in 1945 following the defeat of the Japanese Imperial Army. Yet throughout its four year lifespan, the board produced some $185 billion in military supplies, both in ordnance and logistical supplies such as medicine, gasoline and fatigues. 

Yet production and allocation were not the sole inhibitors and allocators in the economy of World War II America. Price control also played a pivotal role.  Almost five months prior, in August 1941, the Office of Price Administration opened its doors in an attempt to control prices following the outbreak of the war. This administration was also brought into being via executive order.

"Besides controlling prices, the OPA was also empowered to ration scarce consumer goods in wartime. Tires, automobiles, sugar, gasoline, fuel oil, coffee, meats, and processed foods were ultimately rationed," (Encyclopedia.com). Moreover, the OPA had the ability to instate price ceilings and at the peak of the war some 90% of food stuffs were frozen under rationing - the Office often authorized subsidies for commodity production.

The OPA and all of its affiliates, such as the transference of its abilities to the Office of Temporary Controls, was abolished in 1947. Sections of its control were transferred to differing agencies such as the Department of Agriculture and Reconstruction Finance Corporation for a limited time.

But ultimately, organizations such as the OPA and WPB brought the United States, through WWII, out from the grip of the Great Depression. Increased wartime production brought many jobs to the exorbitant amount of unemployed, kicked started the economy and brought a huge and, as of then, highly unexploited asset to the forefront - women workers: Rosie the Riveter. And, in hindsight, the rationing aided the troops serving in the European and Pacific theaters much needed supplies and morale. 

Here, another agency, the War Manpower Commission, a commission created to bring workers into the production force, one directly related to how and through what means the OPA and WPB functioned, is explained...

Moreover, organizations such as the OPA and WPB have operated off and on continually in war times following WWII - wars such as the Korean and Vietnam wars. Today, in our modern economy, such drastic measures are not necessarily needed as recent conflicts have not been on scale with the production needs found in WWII and following wars. Yet, if the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were to escalate or go on for extremely long periods of time and our current economic situations were to somehow plunge for the worst, similar sanctions and regulations could, in theory, be implemented...

Expectations of Summer

Summer. Summer is definitely my favorite and, paradoxically, most disdained time of year. Every winter I long for its coming, can feel it pulling itself up and over the horizon, teasing me to come along and romp with it along the beaches and lie with it on floats in a swimming pool. And when it comes every April, summer laughs at me, its hot breath suffocating me, drenching me in sweat...

And, yet again, I feel that this summer will be another of hot, sticky days, kinds of days where underwear sticks to all the crevices and divots you never knew your skin had, days where the heat exhausts you and you pass out in a lawn chair only to wake up with scorched skin.  O.K. Maybe a little dramatic, but it happens...

But this summer will be different in one, glaring way - I will be graduating. Finally, I will be done with higher learning in regards to how it is an institution that promotes learning what everyone else deems is the truth. Finally, with exorbitant anticipation, I will be able to afford the time to study what I want to study, what I want to jam into my cranium, what I want to pursue. 

I guess, maybe, at this point, I have some vendetta against organized education...I don't really have a reason. It's just a feeling I hold right now and a feeling I'll have to discard to pursue my MFA in writing - but there [at Goddard, Iowa, etc.] everything is more focused on the you, what the individual really wants to learn.

That's always been my problem - taking orders. And in the spirit of summer, by hook or by crook, I can't wait to completely and utterly embrace the learning and life that is right for me [music, writing, video games]. 

Oh, and that's not to say I'm not completely horrified by the notion that I am, now, officially an adult and part of the overall framework of the world. I mean that I am horrified by the notion of becoming self-sustainable, becoming superbly responsible for myself and those in my life, becoming, to quote the Burbs', the guy "up at the crack of dawn watching a dog poop." I say this because I see myself, still, as a big kid...but alot of the time, don't we all...don't wee al think that, want that to be true?

So, I guess instead of writing about summer, I found I really needed to rant about education and my future life - I needed to practice stream of consciousness writing for a change...just write uninhibited...throw caution to the wind...and, in a strange elopement, take summer in hand and absorb its laid back mentality as I enjoy it for the last time before adulthood.

Politi-toons

It seems, even as diplomacy is tried and tried again, and even as the world community attempt to become and assume the role of the middle man between these two nations, Palestinians and Israelis will continuously fight over the Gaza strip and among one another. The irony is that what they are fighting over will never be completely won unless the opposing side is utterly demolished. As the cartoon depicts, Palestinians and Israelis will fight up to the very end.

This cartoon, in many ways, speaks for itself. I enjoy its snarky attitude towards an official that has, in many ways, inflated her ego to outlandish proportions through means more in keeping with reality television stars than anything else. The commentary on how she has fully embraced the celebrity of modern politics his also profound.  Don't get me wrong, I'd watch it, the show I mean...I'd watch it with all the levity and seriousness I stock in the Real World or Big Brother.

This a complete microcosm for how, at least I, myself, feel about the corporate insurance industry. With all the loopholes they have made for themselves through clever and obtuse writing techniques [and through the help of lawyers], all of the companies who promise they'll be there like a good neighbor and lend a helping hand have made it easy, almost through no work at all, to deny claims and put millions of people in debt. Of course, it's not all the insurer's fault - debt is not wholly contributable to this as I may have implied above - but also the fault of the American government's for enabling it and the American people's indifference of it, acceptance of it, and defeatist mindset of "that's just how things are."

I think this cartoon sheds light on the many mindsets that Americans share when it comes to obesity and overeating/over-drinking [i.e. soft drinks, beer, etc.]. Many individuals, it seems, have this mindset that if a food or drink is available, such as junk food at school, they have to eat it, or they become inflamed at not being given choices - the choice is easy: eat it/ drink it or don't. But I also see the flip side in that places such as schools should provide nutritious snacks as students can't all day without eating. This cartoon sheds light on both sides of the argument in an interestingly subtle way.

Being a soon-to-be college graduate, this cartoon sums up my feelings about heading into the world and the wounded job market. The only thing I would change about this is to add a cushion at the bottom that said DEBT.

Piece of Art? A Look at Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk

The assignment in my Opinion Journalism class was to review my favorite piece of art. I could, in fact, easily review something I hold in high esteem, something I dote over such as a painting, a film, a video game (yes, video games have finally become an art form), or a novel, short story, or poem. But, as having read Snuff recently and finding it to be somewhat lacking, I began to think: How difficult is it to review something, with utter fairness, that is, quite frankly, lacking. And, moreover, review that lacking piece of art that is spawned by a beloved artist, one also held in high regard. Here, I decided to delve into the world of Chuck Palhaniuk's Snuff...a novel I both admire for its showcasing of a writer branching out and venturing down new and unknown avenues of creativity and a novel that I, in the other hand, abhor for execution and style....


I'm not an avid viewer of pornography or a connoisseur of the taboo and I'm not saying Vancouver native and Fight Club author Chuck Palhaniuk is, but he does provide a strong case in his fictitious porn-scape, Snuff. A satire from the view of five individuals (Mr. 600, Mr. 137, Mr. 72, Sheila, and porn-goddess Cassie Wright), the story sheds light on a record breaking adult-film- a 600 man gang-bang. But in most parts, the story only gets deep enough, intimate enough, to show us sex; it never really shows us why we should care about what's going on or how the characters feel, or how they fill their “Palahniuk-voids.”

Palahniuk has a style that often leaves his characters with gaping, rotten-flesh wounds, schizophrenic baggage that somehow relates to all us saps that dig into his stories with rabid vigor. But here there is no surgeon, no gun-in-mouth epiphany, or psyche-ward afterward to sew things up, to show us the meaning behind it all, to show that the characters really are characters we could encounter in everyday life, that we could connect with- characterization just falls flat.
  
So, we trudge along as Cassie digs her way out of regret for her long lost “porn-baby” - some reverse ego-trip- and gets her wounds filled with all kinds of gruesome and raw phallic devices,- “tangy, ranch-flavored erections”- but never anything true or rewarding or redeeming. And we can say that about Mr. 600, the porn-o-sapian fossil who, in some ways, is responsible for Cassie's situation. And Mr. 137, the failed television star. And Mr. 72, the Cassie Wright heir wannabe who is trying to save his mother from death by dick.

All the characters are “flesh and blood, but like something's exploded inside” of them, leaving them lifeless.  So, through all the failed parenting, adolescent soul searching, reminiscing, and vanity, we are only left with some strange, Palahniuk-fused monstrosity of entertainment and northwest-hipster culture doused in the triple-x.   
 
 And doused in gruesome detail as well. True to his style, Palahniuk describes dildos, intercourse, condoms, blow up sex-puppets, and countless rare and strange sexual abnormalities to the most hideous of detail, painting us a picture that sometimes could have been omitted. And although Palahniuk's devotion to tabooish detail gives up images that are laugh out loud funny and, at times, pukingly vulgar, he fails to cue us in to the drab surroundings of the 600 gang-bangers. All we know about the backstage area is that there are monitors and monitors and monitors showing Cassie Wright in sexcapades, a bar with nachos and chips and punch and hot-dogs, and gray voids- everything is claustrophobically-gray and dark and vague. Except Cassie who is robed in white light – goddess.
  
So, with this strange juxtaposition of detail, we know about some strange fascination with gang-land tattoos, superfluous celebrity trivia, sexual innuendo, cockamamie porn-film names like “World Whore 1,2,and 3, Gropes of Wrath, and The Wizard of Ass,” but not much of the actual setting or the outside world.
  
But maybe setting isn't important and growth isn't important and zany names aren't important. Maybe this time it's about entertainment for entertainment's sake. And if this is the case, all of Palahniuk's research and hard work and determination to showcase the culturally hip, yet forbidden reality of pornography paid off. And maybe he is telling us something by not showing it all.. Maybe that in itself means something.
  
Mr. 600 says, “Dudes have a million ways of peeing on what they claim as there own,” and Palanhiuk reminds us that shock-writing is his territory by entertainment to prove it. So, read this if you just want to sit back, relax, and be shock-and-awed. Don't expect to find the meaning of life here.

The Dissolution of Yugoslavia: 1990s

Yugoslavia was not a name given to one particular and cohesive country, but a name given to a conglomeration of disparate republics and independent states. In fact, Yugoslavia was, until 1929, only a colloquial name given to this amalgamation of states: the provisional State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, the Kingdom of Serbia, the Kingdom of Montenegro, Macedonia, Vojvodina, and Kosovo. Before World War II, this grouping of states was called the Kingdom of the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (the Kingdom of Yugoslavia). Then, during World War II it was proclaimed the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia. Yet, over the years, many names have befallen the region - Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (1946), Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1963) and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1992).

 For 27 years, 1953-1980, Josip Broz Tito, through various distinctions such as prime minister and president for life, ruled Yugoslavia. "Josip...the leader of the Communist resistance movement [in WWII], appeared to be a loyal Stalinist. After the war, however, he moved to establish an independent Communist state," (Duiker and Spielvogel, 2006). Tito achieved this by lobbying the visage of Yugoslavian freedom to the world at large and taking a stance, not against Communism, but Stalinism in his creation of an independent Eastern European satellite state.

But in 1980, the Yugoslav president for life died and "no strong leader emerged, and eventually Yugoslavia was caught up in the reform movements sweeping through Eastern Europe," (Duiker and Spielvogel, 2006). And in June 1991, Slovenia and Croatia declared their autonomy, an action vehemently opposed by the Serbian provincial leader, Slobodan Milosevic - Milosevic ultimately served as president for the Serbian branch of the League of Communists of Serbia (1989-1997) and, ironically, as the president of Yugoslavia (1997-2000).

Consequently, due to Milosevic's assertions that the two new countries realign their borders to accommodate Serbs in those regions, Serbian forces attacked both Slovenia and Croatia in 1991. Although the Serbian army saw little success in Slovenia, they captured "one third of Croatia's territory," (Duiker and Spielvogel, 2006). And in 1992, three more territories declared their independence: Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Serbian army then turned their attention to Bosnia and Herzegovina and by 1993 had acquired some 70 percent of Bosnian territory.

But more than Bosnian territory was removed from the Bosnian people. "The Serbian policy of ethnic cleansing - killing or forcibly moving Bosnian Muslims from their lands - revived memories of Nazi atrocities in World War II," (Duiker and Spielvogel, 2006). One Muslim survivor recalls: "When the truck stopped, they told us to get off in groups of five. We immediately heard shooting next to the trucks... about ten Serbs with automatic rifles told us to lie down on the ground face first. As we were getting down, they started to shoot, and I fell into a pile of corpses...as they continued to shoot more groups, I kept on squeezing myself between dead bodies...," (quoted in W.I. Hitchcock, The Struggle for Europe: The Turbulent History of a divided Continent, 1945-2002).

As the international community neglected to take a stand against Serbian aggression, the fighting spread and continued until 1995 when a tentative cease-fire was agreed upon. But a cease-fire did not bring peace to the country of Bosnia which lost some 97,207 citizens (killed or displaced). A cease-fire did not correlate to peace in the region.

A new war erupted in 1999 over the autonomous Yugoslavian province of Kosovo - home to Serbian minorities. Milosevic, in 1989, stripped Kosovo of its autonomous status and, in 1993, the country's ethnic Albanian population founded the Kosovo Liberation Army to combat Serbian control and authority within the province. "When Serb forces began to massacre ethnic Albanians in an effort to crush the KLA, the United States and its NATO allies mounted a bombing campaign that forced Milosevic to stop. In the fall elections of 2000, Milosevic himself was ousted from power and he was later put on trial by an international tribunal for war crimes against humanity for his ethnic cleansing policies throughout Yugoslavia's disintegration," (Duiker and Spielvogel, 2006).

In 2004, the last visage of the former Yugoslavia disappeared when the country was renamed Serbia and Montenegro and was put under a new government. But, the independence of Kosovo and Bosnia are not completely decided. To this day, some 30,000 NATO forces remain in the region to maintain peace and control among the still aggressive factions.